Is my personal data safe with online gambling companies?

The online gambling companies have had a history of placing tens and thousands of millions of its customers at risk. The biggest problem seems to be that of data protection. The data protection authorities of these companies need to be careful about these matters, which they clearly aren’t and this is what is leading to data leaks and makes it extremely unsafe to play with online gambling companies.

Although many might believe that their data is safe and secure with online gambling companies – it may just be ones wishful thinking. It is indeed a tale about how these industries use their power to their advantage by making use of your information and at times even using up your money, and you wouldn’t even know! Online gambling companies were first started in 1994 to replicate casinos and betting shops and ever since then they have been known as the industry that flourishes on players’ money. It is known to have had a global revenue of about $135 billion a year.
There are a lot of players who play online betting games, without knowing about the risks attached to it. In fact, in UK alone, from the year 2009 – 2010, it was said that about 4% of the adults were involved in online betting games, which makes it approximately two million people. This when seen in the broader sense, shows that approximately around 35 to 70 million people are involved in playing online betting or gambling games.

However, the real question is who exactly protects all of the data? Well, most of these sites are situated in small territories and jurisdictions in New Jersey, Malta, the Isle of Man and Antigua and Barbuda. Companies can easily transfer to the jurisdictions that offer the best of taxes advantage. Thus, in this lengthy and selfish process, data protection appears to be almost lost. There are two important factors that need to be kept in mind. First off, these online gaming companies are able to collect vast amount of information relating to patterns and finances. Secondly, these have all the personal details (personal identification records) of players.

Without a doubt, having such a vast reserve of sensitive information, they need to have data protection rights to make sure that the data is secured and not used illegally. Moreover, they need to employ rules to get rid of data relating to any person once the information is no longer needed, however, they don’t have these. According to many researchers, it is almost impossible to close a gambling account once it has been opened, and also impossible to get your data deleted. This in itself can be extremely risky.

There have been many events in the past that violates the data protection in online gambling companies. Thus, it leaves us with just one conclusion – it is not safe, whatsoever, to bet on online games, because of them gaining access to all your sensitive information. Moreover, not being able to delete them or even close your account can be daunting!